My company and I performed a workshop performance of the
musical Rent. I am evaluating the
potential of this piece and where it could perhaps go toward a wider scale
production.
Style
In the rehearsal process for the production, we spent a
lesson discussing the style we want for our company’s production of Rent. It was all about how we want our
production to look as a whole – what we wanted to do with it. As this was
toward our performance workshop unit, we were able to workshop various ideas
and sketches for elements such as staging, choreography and exploring through
the script. We wanted the look of our layout to be sort of bleak and industrial
looking to give off quite an impoverished, rusty sort of feel – and due to
these decisions aspects such as set costumes and staging were dependant on it.
Style also incorporates how we present the show; and as Rent is an extremely well known show but because we undergoing
performance workshop, we did not feel pressurised when changing and adapting
it.
The potential for development if we were to take the
production further lies a lot within our style and how we wanted to perform Rent.
1.
We had a lot of positive feedback from the
audience but a lot of people stated that the story was hard to follow and often
they did not know what was going. In developing this, balancing dialogue could
work very effectively in resolving this issue. What I mean by this where the
show is predominantly sung through with very few bits of dialogue, we could
potentially balance it out so that more of the lines were spoken, instead of
sung. This not only allows the story to be followed more clearly, but actually
puts a prime focus on the development of our style and uniqueness in doing this
show. Having more sections of the show spoken enforces a strong element of
straight drama and acting core which works in the favour of creating a
uniqueness to our performance and works very well toward workshopping the
production. Developing my company’s style is important when putting on a
production as it induces an individuality and spontaneity to our work – it
therefore acting as a new, exciting piece of drama that no one has yet
experienced.
2.
As well as staging, the style of a production
(especially a musical) also encounters choreography of numbers. As this was a
workshop performance that the company were practising, choreography movement
within songs was thought up purely by ourselves – some routines were
workshopped and scrapped and some were kept. However if this was taken further
and bigger, potentially hiring a professional dancer/choreographer to focus on
that aspect of the production would allow not only an outsiders input toward
the piece, but also allows us as the actors to focus mainly our individual
performances and exploring the play and our characters. Doing this will
obviously encounter the demands of a fee to hire, therefore we would need some
sort of budget.
Location
Due
to this being an A-level performance and more importantly having nothing to our
site specific unit and criteria, it was sort of by force for the production to
be performed at school – however the actual staging of the show was up to us,
and we workshopped lots of different ways to present the piece. The final
decision was for it to be predominantly staged on the stage in the main hall,
but the use of steel decking, we created lower staging/performance areas to
create wide spectrum to the production for the audience to feel somewhat
attached and involved. We thought that using a small intermit performance
space, perhaps where the audience are on the same level, would be a bit much
for this type of production. It being a musical, entitling music, dance, and
sound and lighting equipment; we felt the performance needed a much bigger, and
clearer space in order for the audience to feel an experience and for us the
actors not to feel so enclosed in a wide scale production like Rent. I also feel that for a musical
theatre piece, close, intermit performance spaces between the action and the
audience don’t work as well as if it was a straight drama paly. I suppose it
was dependant on the way we were staging our version of the production, but as
a company we thought we’d keep it to traditional musical theatre staging, with
an auditorium and set stage – however adding our own little twist with creating
separate steel decking performance spaces, bring the action surrounding the
audience.
A big
part of the production’s potential for development lies in the location to
where we could potentially take the performance.
1. To create a wider scale to
our production of Rent and take a
further, looking into hiring a proper venue with a real auditorium and stage
feel would be one of the first things that I would do. The Avenue Theatre in
Sittingbourne is quite a small auditorium space bit set out like a traditional
theatre. It would allow the production to be go ahead as workshopped with a
sound (tracks, and potentially radio mics), lighting, music and dance with the
audience being quite comfortable in a proper auditorium – seating 88. However
this would require having a production budget to invest in our production; the
Avenue charges £150 including full facilities - and that might be just for one
night, or per hour.
2. Performing our production in
a legit theatre venue would potentially mean changing our set plan purely
because our set designs are fit for a small scale school stage productions so
we’d have to think about changing our set plans – potentially hiring a full
scale Rent professional set, again
demanding a budget. This would mean that our new set would adapt perfectly to
our new theatre venue.
3. Working in a new theatre
with the new set would mean a number of rehearsals in the venue, probably
costing more money in order to use the space. Also, with full scale sound
equipment included in the price, perhaps demanding technical rehearsals, this
might mean having purchase into radio mice to contemplate for the backing
tracks through sound system that would most likely be very overpowering to
natural voice and projection. – again costing a budget.
